Evolution, Creation and Politics

posted at 1:01 pm on January 30, 2011 by Jazz Shaw

Perhaps the most popular parlour game in American politics is for media types to generate litmus test questions which they can put to every candidate and elected official to feed the news cycle beast. These range from generic items such as asking where they stand on abortion or second amendment rights to party specific queries which include egging on Republicans as to whether or not Sarah Palin is “qualified to be President.” One of the oldest and saddest ones, though, is dredged back up by Steve Benen this week, highlighting the gaudy spectacle of Bill Maher asking Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) if he “believes” in evolution.

“Real Time” host Bill Maher asked Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) a fairly straightforward question: “Do you believe in evolution?” Kingston not only said rejects the foundation of modern biology, (sic) he explained it this way: “I believe I came from God, not from a monkey.” He added, “If it happened over millions and millions of years, there should be lots of fossil evidence.”

Seriously, that’s what he said.

First, by way of disclosure, I personally am comfortable with the theory of evolution. I am also comfortable with the fact that in most cases, religion and science are not mutually exclusive, primarily because faith and laboratory experiments have very little overlap. I can also relate to the temptation to deride those who disagree about evolution or other scientific principles because I did it myself when I was younger. It’s easy, as a young man, to be not only invincible but convinced that you’re smarter than everyone else on the planet – particularly those stupid old people.

But as we age, hopefully we learn a little more tolerance and realize our own limitations.

Not only are science and religion not mutually exclusive, more and more these days we see them working together. One of many examples was the discovery by archaeologists of a stone pylon with the name of Pontius Pilate inscribed on it, taking one character out of the realm of “Bible stories” and inserting his name into the history books. Additional examples abound.

Do we really need to badger office seekers and holders with this question any more? Even if some of us disagree with them, is a fixed belief in literal creation truly an indicator of some lack of “critical thinking in the Republican Party,” as Benen so smugly puts it? They aren’t arguing with you in favor of some different scientific theory which contradicts yours. They’re promoting an entirely different belief which demands no proof from the laboratory.

If the development of the universe and our planet played out over billions of years and life “evolved” here as current theory suggests, I’m not so vain about my own intellect to claim that God couldn’t have designed the entire shooting match to do just that. Matters of timelines could be nothing more than misinterpretation of scale. And what of all those fossils in the ground? Perhaps, as I suspect, they are the result of various animal and plant species rising, changing and dying off. Or, for all I know, I’m totally wrong, the planet actually is only six or seven thousand years old and God put them there on purpose for us to find. Why? I haven’t a clue. You’d have to ask Him.

The point is, no matter how sound any given scientific theory turns out to be, you’re never going to prove that it wasn’t a flashing, infinitely divine creation. And you’re never going to shake the belief of those who find it a bedrock foundation of their faith. So why should you try? And in a land founded in part on religious freedom, why would you want to try?

Having alluded to the subject of reversion, I may here refer to a statement often made by
naturalists–namely, that our domestic varieties, when run wild, gradually but certainly revert in
character to their aboriginal stocks. Hence it has been argued that no deductions can be drawn fromdomestic races to species in a state of nature.

Further down the page…

Nevertheless, as our varieties certainly do occasionally
revert in some of their characters to ancestral forms, it seems to me not improbable, that if we could succeed in naturalising, or were to cultivate, during many enerations, the several races, for instance, of the cabbage, in very poor soil (in which case, however, some effect would have to be attributed to the direct action of the poor soil), that they would to a large extent, or even wholly, revert to the wild aboriginal stock.

Further down the same page….

When we look to the hereditary varieties or races of our domestic animals and plants, and compare
them with species closely allied together, we generally perceive in each domestic race, as already remarked, less uniformity of character than in true species. Domestic races of the same species,
also, often have a somewhat monstrous character; by which I mean, that, although differing from each other, and from the other species of the same genus, in several trifling respects, they often differ in an extreme degree in some one part, both when compared one with another, and more especially when compared with all the species in nature to which they are nearest allied.
And so on for the rest of the book.

You have to account for the fact that this book is mid 18th century. Races, as Darwin used the word, are a reference to domestic strains or different species of animals and plants, for most of the argument, including the title.

On page 94 of the linked pdf he finally gets into the human race discussion, but only barely.

But we are far too ignorant to speculate on the relative importance of the several known and unknown laws of variation; and I have here alluded to them only to show that, if we are unable to account for the characteristic differences of our domestic breeds, which nevertheless we
generally admit to have arisen through ordinary generation, we ought not to lay too much stress on our ignorance of the precise cause of the slight analogous differences between species. I might have adduced for this same purpose the differences between the races of man, which are so strongly
marked; I may add that some little light can apparently be thrown on the origin of these differences, chiefly through sexual selection of a particular kind, but without here entering on copious details my reasoning would appear frivolous.

The foregoing remarks lead me to say a few words on the protest lately made by some naturalists, against the utilitarian doctrine that every detail of structure has been produced for the good of its possessor. They believe that very many structures have been created for beauty in the eyes of man, or for mere variety. This doctrine, if true, would be absolutely fatal to my theory. Yet I fully admit that many structures are of no direct use to their possessors. Physical conditions probably have had some little effect on structure, quite independently of any good thus gained. Correlation of growth has no doubt played a most important part, and a useful modification of one part will often have entailed on other parts diversified changes of no direct use. So again characters which formerly were useful, or which formerly had arisen from correlation of growth, or from other unknown cause, may reappear from the law of reversion, though now of no direct use. The effects of sexual selection, when displayed in beauty to charm the females, can be called useful only in rather a forced sense. But by far the most important consideration is that the chief part of the organisation of every being is simply due to inheritance; and consequently, though each being assuredly is well fitted for its place in nature, many structures now have no direct relation to the habits of life of each species.

Now, was Darwin racist? Quite likely, as this was common in the time that he lived, but you have a very weak argument to point towards “On the Origin of Species” as evidence of that.

Now I do agree with you that there have been terrible consequences for humanity as a result of embracing evolution as the driver of all life. The eugenics movement, from which Planned Parenthood stems, has the idea of helping evolution along to improve the future of humanity by selective breeding, removal of undesirable traits by other methods, and even sterilization. This isn’t that different in an absolute sense from what the Nazis did, but it was more twisted with the approach Germany took, because there was a scapegoat motive as well.

In the absence of morality, or in other words God, terrible things seem reasonable.

You have to account for the fact that this book is mid 18th century. Races, as Darwin used the word, are a reference to domestic strains or different species of animals and plants, for most of the argument, including the title.

humans are animals…especially considering darwin said the following:

“The more civilized so-called Caucasian races have beaten the Turkish hollow in the struggle for existence. Looking to the world at no very distant date, what an endless number of the lower races will have been eliminated by the higher civilised races throughout the world.” (Darwin, Charles R. [English naturalist and founder of the modern theory of evolution], “The Life of Charles Darwin”, [1902], Senate: London, 1995, reprint, p.64).

I don’t buy that he wasn’t talking about the races of humans too…and in the book ‘a civic biology’ (the scopes ‘monkey trial’) it makes the evoluitonary view of races clear

Hovannisian quotes from page 196 of Hunter’s textbook:

At the present time there exist upon the earth five races or varieties of man, each very different from the other in instincts, social customs, and, to an extent, in structure. These are the Ethiopian or n egro type, originating in Africa; the Malay or brown race, from the islands of the Pacific; the American Indian; the Mongolian or yellow race, including the natives of China, Japan, and the Eskimos; and finally, the highest type of all, the Caucasians, represented by the civilized white inhabitants of Europe and America.

I might have adduced for this same purpose the differences between the races of man, which are so strongly
marked; I may add that some little light can apparently be thrown on the origin of these differences, chiefly through sexual selection of a particular kind, but without here entering on copious details my reasoning would appear frivolous.

this is a racist statement. because if there are different races, then obviously one race must be more ‘evolved’ than others….as darwin made clear in the quote I posted from.

now how could biological arguments for racism increase after the acceptance of the theory of evolution if it wasn’t a racist theory?

and look at people like Watson…

Watson is credited with discovering the double helix along with Maurice Wilkins and Francis Crick in 1962.

In the newspaper interview, he said there was no reason to think that races which had grown up in separate geographical locations should have evolved identically. He went on to say that although he hoped everyone was equal, “people who have to deal with black employees find this not true”.

Ok, you are actually reinforcing my point. Its been a while since I had to slog through “On the Origin of Species”, but I recall an inordinate amount of discussion revolving around pidgeons. Darwin essentially admitted in On the Origin of Species that he didn’t want to go into the lenghty discussion of his view on human races, which I quoted. You may in fact be right, that in his thinking, he was appling this as equally to humans as animals, however, that isn’t directly in “On the Origin of Species”. You referenced other material, outside of on the origin of species, where he at least verbalized his beliefs and was quoted in “The Life of Charles Darwin”.

I have no qualms with the statement of Darwin’s racism, it was rampant in the mid 18th century, as well as the belief that one race was superior to another in some evolutionary fashion, which I’ve always viewed as the byproduct of slavery. This is the case with the Scopes trial as well, because just like Darwin’s views stemmed from England’s slavery trade, so did a LOT of Americans views.

In my opinion, when one human enslaves another, it alters your thought process, leading you to feel like you’re somehow superior. (If you view your slave as your equal fellow human, you have a naturally occurring moral dilema.)

Modern evolutionary thought doesn’t place this kind of silly constraint on the view of human races. It is more of a biogeographical genetic drift, driven by natural selection in each environment. So in other words, there isn’t a universal superiority because there is no globally acting natural selection pressure that would drive such a thing.

Eugenics and other movements that sought to improve the species for a perverted sense of superiority are not evolutionary thought. They are terrible things that go on in the absense of God, as people try to take control of evolution.

The point I’m trying to get across is that evolution by itself isn’t racially driven. It has in the past been incorrectly applied with a racist premise. The only difference today is that the racist premise is gone, because it is unsupportable by the theory that evolutionsists cling to. Sadly they don’t apply this same kind of logic acreoss the board, as they still cling the to the premise that there is no creator. This premise affects their ability to objectively look at the patterns, because if you remove all premises, and begin with evidence, you reach a conclusion.

You may in fact be right, that in his thinking, he was appling this as equally to humans as animals, however, that isn’t directly in “On the Origin of Species”.

it is, from your own post:

I might have adduced for this same purpose the differences between the races of man, which are so strongly
marked; I may add that some little light can apparently be thrown on the origin of these differences, chiefly through sexual selection of a particular kind, but without here entering on copious details my reasoning would appear frivolous.

I have no qualms with the statement of Darwin’s racism, it was rampant in the mid 18th century, as well as the belief that one race was superior to another in some evolutionary fashion, which I’ve always viewed as the byproduct of slavery. This is the case with the Scopes trial as well, because just like Darwin’s views stemmed from England’s slavery trade, so did a LOT of Americans views.

I could care less about Darwin’s personal views…the theory of evolution itself is racist, as I have made clear.

Modern evolutionary thought doesn’t place this kind of silly constraint on the view of human races. It is more of a biogeographical genetic drift, driven by natural selection in each environment. So in other words, there isn’t a universal superiority because there is no globally acting natural selection pressure that would drive such a thing.

yes there is, as Watson’s statement, and Gould’s statement make clear.

The point I’m trying to get across is that evolution by itself isn’t racially driven. It has in the past been incorrectly applied with a racist premise

I totally disagree. you haven’t dealt with Darwin’s statements, or Gould’s or Watson’s.

since there are RACES of people, then obviously one has to be more evolved than the others…Darwin recognized it, why don’t you?

Eugenics and other movements that sought to improve the species for a perverted sense of superiority are not evolutionary thought. They are terrible things that go on in the absense of God, as people try to take control of evolution.

eugenics is applied evolution. Galton, Darwin’s cousin coined the term..his children were deeply into it…

Thirdly, Darwin prepared the way for eugenics. Indeed, his immediate family would soon be involved in that movement — his sons George and Leonard became active in promoting it (Leonard serving as “president of the Eugenics Education Society, the main eugenics group in Great Britain”), and his cousin Francis Galton became the founder of the “eugenics crusade.” Evidently, Darwin was sympathetic to eugenics: West quotes him as vowing “to cut off communication” with his disciple Mivart when the latter “criticized an article by Darwin’s son George that advocated eugenics.”

Darwin himself said this:
<blockquote>”With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilised men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilised societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.” (Darwin, Charles R. [English naturalist and founder of the modern theory of evolution], “The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex,” [1871], John Murray: London, Second Edition, 1922, reprint, pp.205-206)

You obviously believe yourself to be correct. The very next sentence part of Darwin’s sentence…

I may add that some little light can apparently be thrown on the origin of these differences, chiefly through sexual selection of a particular kind, but without here entering on copious details my reasoning would appear frivolous.

addresses the limit of what Darwin was going to say about human races in the book. So what needs addressing that Darwin himself didn’t address? He kicked the can down the road and off the table of discussion in his book.

Gould was saying that after the advent of evolutionary thinking, people were looking for a reason to be superior because of slavery. This needs addressing?

Watson being shown to be a racist, and using the same thinking as Darwin since he is a racist scientist needs addressing in what way?

I have done my part to lead you to the logical fallacy that you are using. If you can’t step back and look at your premise, that individuals with a screwed up view illustrate something about a theory……..

How is that any different from Krautie using the example of abortion clinic bombers as evidence that Christianity is bad?

Check your logic. I’ve been trying to help you understand the problem with your argument.

I may add that some little light can apparently be thrown on the origin of these differences, chiefly through sexual selection of a particular kind, but without here entering on copious details my reasoning would appear frivolous.

this doesn’t change the fact that darwin talked about human RACES….not one race.

Gould was saying that after the advent of evolutionary thinking, people were looking for a reason to be superior because of slavery. This needs addressing?

yes, because why would biological arguments for racism increase after evolution was adopted, if the theory of evolution was not racist?

Watson being shown to be a racist, and using the same thinking as Darwin since he is a racist scientist needs addressing in what way?

because what he said is evolutionary theory…isolation breeds different species. thats what his racism is based upon, evolutionary theory.

I have done my part to lead you to the logical fallacy that you are using. If you can’t step back and look at your premise, that individuals with a screwed up view illustrate something about a theory……..

its not a fallacy. you seem to have your mind made up and facts don’t matter to you.

A direct line runs from Darwin, through the founder of the eugenics movement-Darwin’s cousin, Francis Galton-to the extermination camps of Nazi Europe.” (Brookes, Martin.,”Ripe old age,” Review of “Of Flies, Mice and Men,” by Francois Jacob, Harvard University Press, 1999. New Scientist, Vol. 161, No. 2171, 30 January 1999, p.41).

“The case for Darwinism cannot be based on any edification that is supposed to come from its truths. Through eugenics, Darwinism was a bad influence on Nazism, one of the greatest killers in world history. Darwinism probably contributed to the upsurge of racism in the latter part of the nineteenth century, and thus it helped foment twentieth-century racism generally. Darwinism was also used to exacerbate the neglect of the poor in the nineteenth century. All things considered, Darwinism has had many regrettable, and sometimes actually vicious, effects on the social climate of the modern world. Modern Darwinism does not offer any guarantee of unending progress. It is understandable that so many hate Darwin and Darwinism. It is often a bitter burden to live with Darwinism and its implications. Unlike so many doctrines, religions, and ideologies, it certainly isn’t intellectual opium. No one can make a case for Darwinism based on moral hygiene.” (Rose M.R. [Professor of Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Irvine], “Darwin’s Spectre: Evolutionary Biology in the Modern World,” [1998], Princeton University Press: Princeton NJ, 2000, Third printing, p.210).

Check your logic. I’ve been trying to help you understand the problem with your argument.

Marine_Bio on February 2, 2011 at 3:01 PM

you should check your logic. you’ve repeated typical darwin talking points…but you haven’t really shown any reason why evolution isn’t racist. all you have done is dismiss any ideas that you disagree with.

and you have to ask yourself why racism increased in the latter part of the 19th century..when the first part of that century was devoted to getting rid of slavery and racism…by people like Wilberforce and Lincoln…that all people were equal…

then the last part of the 19th century..racism increases…couldn’t have anything to do with evolutionary theory now could it?

I hope you understand where I’m going with this. The tools I mentioned can be used to kill people. But people are who kill people. Does the racist viewpoint of the inventor of a tool make the tool racist? Logic would say no.

If people are racist, and use a tool inapropriately, you get an outcome that is racist. If it is a physical tool like a knife, you may have a murder. If it is an intellectual tool like a theory, you get an attempt to justify racism or superiority of one race over another. The advent of evolutionary thinking would be analagous to the advent of the handgun. New tool, getting used by people for their purposes, regardless of motivational purity.

Evolution is a theory, theories are tools. Need I remind yout that this is one theory that I believe is wrong? But, for example, there is nothing racist about looking at changes in the Hardy-Weinberg allele frequencies to discern selective pressure in action that is racist.

I hope you understand where I’m going with this. The tools I mentioned can be used to kill people. But people are who kill people. Does the racist viewpoint of the inventor of a tool make the tool racist? Logic would say no.

evolution isnt’ a tool…its an idea…naziism was an idea too. as was communism.

I really don’t know what else to say. I’ve provided all the documentation…and the logic…

it comes down to the evolutionary idea of RACES of people…if there are multiple races, then they evolved differntly correct? and one must be superior to the others…and the evolution textbooks made clear the white race is superior…

this is from Huxley, Darwin’s bulldog:

“It may be quite true that some ne g roes are better than some white men; but no rational man, cognisant of the facts, believes that the average n eg ro is the equal, still less the superior, of the average white man. And, if this be true, it is simply incredible that, when all his disabilities are removed, and our prognathous relative has a fair field and no favour, as well as no oppressor, he will be able to compete successfully with his bigger-brained and smallerjawed rival, in a contest which is to be carried on by thoughts and not by bites. The highest places in the hierarchy of civilisation will assuredly not be within the reach of our d usky cousins, though it is by no means necessary that they should be restricted to the lowest.” (Huxley, Thomas Henry [Anatomist, Dean of the Royal College of Science, and “Darwin’s Bulldog”], “Emancipation-Black and White,” in Rhys E., ed., “Lectures and Lay Sermons,” [1871], Everyman’s Library, J.M. Dent & Co: London, 1926, reprint, p.115)

it doesn’t matter that huxley is personally racist, or not….he get the justification for his racism from evolutionary theory

True only if right4life hasn’t already done so which, judging by her repetition of the same arguments and insults over and over for the last two years, I seriously doubt.

Her arguments break down to the same eugenic/nazi/harrygod claims. The last one of calling Darwin a “harrygod” has struck many as rather odd considering that there is practically no main deity, all-father or the like that is not similarly bearded. This would include the xian god.

Trolling is a hit and run or an intellectually dishonest reply. Like yours. Your quote mining for example in the form of not including the entire comment by Hitler of what actions have been taken against atheists.

Then of course we have the ad hom regarding intelligence and the like from you instead of a rational argument against the claims posted. No points there.

And odd how you cannot make your arguments here but have to rely upon someone who you think makes the argument for you.

I mean even right4life isn’t too lazy to post quotes from her sources.

I believe you are projecting again. Considering that so many true xians have declared other races to be inferior, to be persecuted and executed (as Hitler did) or were the color they are due to them carrying the mark of Cain and his legacy, I think racism is something that has been a quality of the xian faith for centuries. As far as the “harrygod” claim goes, again, your god like so many other are harry, so what is the point you are trying to make?

And while you quote people who try to analyze Hitler after the fact, you cannot address his own public claims.

According to his own professed beliefs and his actions, Hitler hated Jews, homosexuals and atheists as well as others. Considering the recent history in the southern region of the United States, and your condemnation of two of the three listed, Hitler was a xian. There are so many in our modern world who proclaim to be a xian and carry the same hatreds and outlooks Hitler did towards those very same groups.

And you still like to make such broad unsupportable claims, like “interesting how all the historians acknowledge the darwin-hitler connection”. Blanket statement and such are always false (I hope you laughed over that one too SauerKraut537).

And again, you fail to comprehend what I stated about anything being abused for any reason.

Odd how xians love to claim that Hitler was not a real xian, even though xians today hate the same people he did, but that he was a true supporter of evolution and “Darinism”. Also odd how you have dropped the claim that Hitler was actually an atheist. I guess that comment from him stating what was done to atheism killed that argument for now.

And six replies form you over my little post? Hmmm. Looks like I hit a nerve.

But let us look at your last post.

“thanks for coming back and spreading your anti-christian bigotry and hatred…”

I simply pointed out what Hitler stated his faith to be and I can cite what he did in the name of the xian god. I’m sorry if the fact that he was a xian upsets you or that the same people he hated and murdered are the same people a large number of xians typically rally against to this day.

These facts are neither bigotry nor hatred. They are simply facts.

“its been fun, as usual, making you look like an idiot.”

You are free to believe what you will, but all you have shown is just what lengths you will go to in order to not face the reality of history alone.

Again, you have claimed in the past that Hitler was not a true xian yet you cannot fathom the idea that he did the same think with anything else to justify his actions. Such a double standard on your part illustrates your intellectually dishonest arguments.

And again, odd isn’t it that so many modern xians, yourself included, so easily rally against so many of the same groups that Hitler persecuted and blamed for all the ills of society.

I almost forgot. You may be interested in some of the live debates that go on using the VOIP service PalTalk. While you will find a plethora of right4life type xians, equally obstinate and fanatical muslims and even their polar opposits in the atheist group(s), there are a great number of people from myriad of points of view who seek rational conversation and debate.

Much has been written, and well, in recent years about this scandalous era, most recently by Edwin Black in his splendid War Against the Weak. In her interesting new history Preaching Eugenics, Christine Rosen focuses instead on the little-known and shameful promotion of eugenics by a surprisingly large number of American ecclesiastics. Take, for example, the Reverend Washington Gladden, a leader in the “Social Gospel” movement, who asserted in 1926 that Christianity “must be a religion less concerned about getting men to heaven than about fitting them for their proper work on earth.”

But I’m sure the author is simply ignorant, mistaken or some sort of evil atheist…

Oh, wait…

Wesley J. Smith is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute and a special consultant to the Center for Bioethics and Culture.

Again, the reality is that anything can be used by those of such a mind to justify their actions and it would appear that the presence, recognition or even worship of your god is meaningless to that outcome.

So debating over VOIP huh? Do you just listen in or are you actively debating?

I’ve only come across one other troll as bad as right4life and he was on John Loftus’ website called Debunking Christianity on Blogspot. Loftus has a few books out there but he’s a former preacher who has several masters degrees in Religion and Philosophy. He also has some doctoral work to his name if memory serves, but interestingly he used to be a student under William Lane Craig.

Anyway, the other trolls name was DM, and he had gotten so bad that he only had one post he would ever post and it was always the same exact one every time. It was always a long diatribe of jumbled conspiracy theories against evolution and atheism and praising the Lord and all that jazz.

Some funny shit until you’ve seen it 100 times…

;-P

Anyway, now that I’ve mentioned right4life, I’m sure he’ll come back and congratulate me for coming back and making even MORE of a fool of myself, and then call me a LIAR! And a Darwiniac (that sounds like it might be a new word to you unless he used it a lot back when you first encountered him.)

Your incessant charges that Darwin was a racist are complete buffoonery. Infanticide, rape, genocide, slavery, abortion, and “racism” have all been prevalent from the earliest of times. We even see these behaviors in animals, so we know that these behaviors predate even humanity. It is safe to say that these things have probably been practiced by virtually all human societies. There are records from the Egyptians, for example, ridiculing the Nubians as inferiors, some of the earliest records of racism. The Bible itself records not only the idea of “a chosen people”, but indeed records genocide, slavery, and infanticide at the “command of God”.

Darwin did state the very obvious fact that races differ from each other physically. He also believed that they differed mentally, as in this quote from Descent of Man:

Their mental characteristics are likewise very distinct; chiefly as it would appear in their emotional, but partly in their intellectual faculties.

But it was also obvious to him that the races could interbreed and had a common heritage. It’s clear that he didn’t consider any race “less evolved”:

It may be doubted whether any character can be named which is distinctive of a race and is constant.

He also found that individuals of all races were really far more similar mentally than different:

The American aborigines, Negroes and Europeans are as different from each other in mind as any three races that can be named; yet I was incessantly struck, whilst living with the Feugians on board the “Beagle,” with the many little traits of character, shewing how similar their minds were to ours; and so it was with a full-blooded negro with whom I happened once to be intimate.

He certainly believed in treating other people fairly, no matter what race. He absolutely abhorred slavery:

I was told before leaving England that after living in slave countries all my opinions would be altered; the only alteration I am aware of is forming a much higher estimate of the negro character. It is impossible to see a negro and not feel kindly towards him.

So I really don’t think it’s fair to label him “racist”. He was exceptionally fair, especially by the standards of his day, in which essentially everybody was really quite shockingly racist. (England had not yet abolished slavery.)

Darwin may well be “a little racist” by modern standards, but that doesn’t really have anything to do with the validity of the theory.

Since Darwin’s original formulation of the theory we’ve added a huge amount of data, which under the evolutionary theory makes it clear that all people are descended from a common ancestor and none of us is any more “evolved” than another.

I believe you are projecting again. Considering that so many true xians have declared other races to be inferior, to be persecuted and executed (as Hitler did) or were the color they are due to them carrying the mark of Cain and his legacy, I think racism is something that has been a quality of the xian faith for centuries. As far as the “harrygod” claim goes, again, your god like so many other are harry, so what is the point you are trying to make?

laughable BS. so answer this if Hitler was a christian, as you say, why did he persecute so many christians like Boenhoffer? and where were the darwnist/atheist opposition leaders to hitler? hmmmmm??? can’t think of any, can you?? no surprise.

I know you can’t answer this or any other point, all you can do is post darwiniac talking points…talk about a brain-dead troll…

And while you quote people who try to analyze Hitler after the fact, you cannot address his own public claims.

uh you misquoted…ie LIED about what Hitler said, as the other poster pointed out. Lying for darwin, its what you do.

And you still like to make such broad unsupportable claims, like “interesting how all the historians acknowledge the darwin-hitler connection”. Blanket statement and such are always false (I hope you laughed over that one too SauerKraut537).

post your historians that disagree…cite them…lets see what ya got…bet ya can’t….that would take thought…

Odd how xians love to claim that Hitler was not a real xian, even though xians today hate the same people he did, but that he was a true supporter of evolution and “Darinism”. Also odd how you have dropped the claim that Hitler was actually an atheist. I guess that comment from him stating what was done to atheism killed that argument for now.

again why did Hitler put christians in jail, since he was such a good christian according to your dumb ass.

Also odd how you have dropped the claim that Hitler was actually an atheist. I guess that comment from him stating what was done to atheism killed that argument for now.

uh I never said he was an atheist…another lie on your part…no surprise….he was an occultist. thats why he started his own church Deutchen Christen…but don’t let facts get in the way of your ideology…you never do.

hmmmm you said you weren’t going to post to me again…damn you’re a liar.

you can’t answer any of my points…just deny them…proving that you’re a brain-dead troll

But it was also obvious to him that the races could interbreed and had a common heritage. It’s clear that he didn’t consider any race “less evolved”:

I mean you’re either a liar, or you’re just delusional as hell…

“The more civilized so-called Caucasian races have beaten the Turkish hollow in the struggle for existence. Looking to the world at no very distant date, what an endless number of the lower races will have been eliminated by the higher civilised races throughout the world.” (Darwin, Charles R. [English naturalist and founder of the modern theory of evolution], “The Life of Charles Darwin”, [1902], Senate: London, 1995, reprint, p.64)

So I really don’t think it’s fair to label him “racist”. He was exceptionally fair, especially by the standards of his day, in which essentially everybody was really quite shockingly racist. (England had not yet abolished slavery.)

damn you’re stupid…Darwin published his work in what 1859?? English outlawed the slave trade in 1807 and on August 1 1834 britain abolished slavery

this is par for the course for you darwinic dumbasses…just astounding ignorance.

you must be a masochist to continue to make such a fool out of yourself.

damn you’re stupid…Darwin published his work in what 1859?? English outlawed the slave trade in 1807 and on August 1 1834 britain abolished slavery

this is par for the course for you darwinic dumbasses…just astounding ignorance.

you must be a masochist to continue to make such a fool out of yourself.

right4life on February 2, 2011 at 7:32 PM

No, YOU’re the dumbass. Darwin WROTE his “works” in the 1820’s and 30’s when he was traveling here there and yon doing the actual studying of nature, and witnessing all the flora and fauna around the world…. and THEN published his works in 1859.

Or did you conveniently forget that he sat on his theory for ~20 years?

This means that when he wrote the majority of these opinions on the varying races, he was still living in a world of slavery and racist thoughts.

In any event, as I said in my post to you before. His PERSONAL views have absolutely no bearing on the validity of the theory.

It takes a racist to see racism in a scientific theory
SauerKraut537 on February 2, 2011 at 7:54 PM

While it is probably unfair to state that she is racist, it definitely has been frustrating trying to get her to see the logical problem with stating that a tool like a theory is racist. I’ve had this argument with several folks, who seem to believe the logical conclusion of evolutionary thought is to try to take control of the process. If you’re truly an envolutionist, why would you try to wrestle control of the process away from nature? You wouldn’t. Eugenics was a movement where people thought evolution wasn’t working efficiently enough, and wanted to give it a “helping hand”. That isn’t a true evolutionary thought process. It is a perversion of the line of thinking, just as christian bombing of abortion clinics is a perversion of the faith.

So debating over VOIP huh? Do you just listen in or are you actively debating?

Both if you choose. There are quite a few who just join rooms to listen to debates. There are also some who only argue in text. Some are labeled “text trolls” for what would be obvious due to what they type and how they conduct themselves.

But if you want to speak, you are free to do so. Once you do though, I will warn you of one outcome I have noticed with many who earnestly like discussion and debate. Text debates such as these tend to lose any if all of their attraction.

The service is free and listening to some conversations can boost your faith in your fellow man or dash it to the rocks so to speak.

As far as right4life and her one track message, yes the claims are the same ones she has made for at least two years. If you go to http://www.fstdt.com/QuoteComment.aspx?QID=56377 you can see the date of one of her rants; 01/17/2009 and yes she uses many of the same arguments and terminology you have seen here.

In any regards, nice to talk to you. Hope to see you around either here, on PalTalk or elsewhere.

I know you can’t answer this or any other point, all you can do is post darwiniac talking points…talk about a brain-dead troll…

Yet right after you post this comment, you continue to argue against what I posted even after you said it wasn’t worth it.

Using the standard you established when SauerKraut537 stated he was no longer going to talk to you but then did, this make you a liar at the very least.

But let us get back to your claims here. In other words, you post another claim you cannot back up with a source and then dismiss that which you cannot rationally address…again.

I really don’t think Boenhoffer’s faith was relevant considering he was involved in the resistance against the Nazis.

Odd how you demand an answer in your post but then condemn me for not somehow magically answering it in that very same post. Odd indeed.

So you assume that since atheist did not rise up in mass or in a recognizable group as atheist, none apposed Hitler.

That is akin to blaming the Jews for not fighting back and stopping the Holocaust. Both groups were disenfranchised minorities with laws and restriction on what they could and couldn’t do.

Again, odd double standard you create. If Hitler has rules and laws persecuting the Jews, well that’s just because he is evil. If he has similar laws against atheist and agnostics, it is because he was secretly one or due to the fact that atheist as a group didn’t stand up to him. Your logic simply isn’t.

uh you misquoted…ie LIED about what Hitler said, as the other poster pointed out. Lying for darwin, its what you do.

Again, you can claim anything you want right4life, but this, like so many of your claims, you cannot back up.

Agian, I can cite Hitler’s very claims including about his faith. Again, it may not settle with you to well, but history is history.

“Other posters”? You mean other trolls who cannot even argue the points here in an intellectually honest manner but rely on the work of others and simply call anyone who disagrees names.

post your historians that disagree…cite them…lets see what ya got…bet ya can’t….that would take thought…

And again, besides your insults, you have nothing to back up you blanket claims.

You stated all historians supported your claims. Even using your mercurial standards, it now falls upon you to cite “all historians” or your claim is simply the unsupportable blanket statement it is.

again why did Hitler put christians in jail, since he was such a good christian according to your dumb ass.

Tsk, tsk. Instead of resorting to more and more vitriolic comments ma’am, you should back up your claims with a more reasoned and rational argument.

Your claim assumes a great many things that are simply not true.

First would be that all xians think alike and support one another. Looking over the bloody infighting of the xian faiths, that assumption on your part is false.

The second would be that one xian would not jail or persecute another. That too is also false. Hitler, a self professed xian, did pursue Boenhoffer, another xian, due to Boenhoffer’s stand against the Nazis.

Odd that this simple logic and rational examination is eluding you.

uh I never said he was an atheist…another lie on your part…no surprise….

No right4life, just your short memory. Not my fault that you cannot or will not remember all of the unsupported claims you have made over the last two years at least.

he was an occultist. thats why he started his own church Deutchen Christen…but don’t let facts get in the way of your ideology…you never do.

He was also a catholic and Catholicism and Christianity both incorporate the occult and occult symbols. That fits right into him being a xian.

because I knew you wouldn’t be able to respond to any of it, just ignore it as you usually do with any fact that disagrees with your ideology. you never change. still posting lies and BS.

Again, I did reply and as far as lying goes, again, you stated that you were not going to reply to the rest of my post but then you did and using your own established standard that makes you a lair.

Are you unable to follow the rules and standard you yourself set?

another lie on your part. you’re full of them, and it.

Again right4life, the facts are not on your side.

There are a multitude of sites, both here and across the net, where you reflexively attack homosexuals and atheists.

You must have some sort of fetish that involves the Nazis, Hitler, homosexuals and atheist. You seem too like to claim they were everything you seem to despise.

Darwinists like Hitler persecuted christians…so name the atheists/darwinists that hitler persecuted…you can’t

And again, your claims are not supported by history nor are your demands rational.

I do not need to name one atheist that Hitler had murdered in order to be able to cite the fact that atheist were persecuted just as I do not need to cite the name of any homosexual, gypsy, communist, Jew or other person to support the historical fact that it occurred.

So are you doubting that all those groups were persecuted by the Nazis? Wow. A new category of holocaust denial.

just like you can’t respond to anything I posted…

Actually, I have, but unlike you I do not lie and keep claiming to be doing different things like not replying and then reply.

All you consistently do is call people names, make ridiculous demands of proof, ignore whatever facts or history is posted and project actions committed in the name of your god onto anyone and everyone else.

Oh, let me correct that last one. Since you have established so many standards, we can now cite when you have violated your own standards.

Also, we can use your established terminology and cite all of the evils visited upon mankind in the name of your racist harrygod.

I am so glad that there are others of faith who do not follow or embrace your hatred of so many.

… it’s absurd to take an intelligently-guided process and say that it proves the exact same thing could have happened randomly if you just allow more time.

And yet both of you actually double down on such a ridiculous notion.

The only thing that intelligent selective breeding proves is that intelligent design is possible and productive. It proves absolutely nothing at all about a random process that is postulated but never actually observed.

Well there’s your problem, evolution is not random. It is adaptation to a local environment that stays constant (temporally non-random) throughout many generations of a population.

… we have way too many people who can’t tell the difference between plausible and proven. Since evolution is a plausible theory, and the only scientific one available, they jump to the the declaration that it is fact.

Evolution as the ‘story’ about how life developed is a theory that cannot be tested directly (no time machine available). But this parsimonious theory has generated a multitude of testable hypotheses supported rather than falsified by 150 years of scientific research. This makes the theory of evolution a very strong theory. Importantly the theory is fitting in with findings from a wide array of scientific fields from astronomy (allowing for the time scales necessary for evolution on earth to genetics, the locus for variability and selection). It comes down to semantics (degree of certainty needed), but the theory is a ‘fact’ to me and the great majority of scientists today… nothing makes sense in Biology without Evolution. It’s a ‘I would bet all my money on it being basically true’ kind of fact.

Puntuated equilibrium… : if the evidence of evolution is so sparse that someone can plausibly propose that it may have happened many times faster in the past, then the theory of evolution has a very long ways to go before it’s proven.

I see no problems with adaptation happening at variable speeds, it all depends on the environment. If there is a change opening up a large reproductive gain in one adaptive ‘direction’, sure adaptation will happen more quickly. The basic tenets of evolution still stands.

yeah there are always useful idiots..just like you’re a darwiniac useful idiot….

again who came up with the term EUGENICS??? hmm??? oh yeah Galton..DARWIN’S COUSIN!! LOL

And irrelevant to the fact that, according to senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, so many xians supported eugenics.

And again, odd how you keep removing such facts from your replies. You really seem to have a problem with historical fact that don’t agree with your myopic world view and you so easily dismiss sources you cannot rational debate.

damn you’re stupid…Darwin published his work in what 1859?? English outlawed the slave trade in 1807 and on August 1 1834 britain abolished slavery

And much like your faith, the devil is in the details.

“The Slavery Abolition Act 1833 (citation 3 & 4 Will. IV c. 73) was an 1833 Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom abolishing slavery throughout most of the British Empire (with the notable exceptions “of the Territories in the Possession of the East India Company,” the “Island of Ceylon,” and “the Island of Saint Helena”).[1] The Act was repealed in 1998 as part of a wider rationalisation of English statute law, but later anti-slavery legislation remains in force.”

this is par for the course for you darwinic dumbasses…just astounding ignorance.

Really like the website you have. I’ve been looking for one stop shops for skeptic material for a long time. I can’t tell you how frustrating its been debunking a lot of the claims of fundamentalist religious people and I was brought up in a Lutheran family in Texas so my indoctrination into religious thought and memes was extensive.

It’s been a long hard slog but my perspective on these things had grown enough that I was able to get away from it finally.

I think back to my youth and I recall having a more skeptical outlook on the ideas of religion but I was the good son. When I began to stray I was whipped back into line in fairly short order, both by my friends who used the usual memes and fallacious arguments that I just wasn’t equipped to defend against.

That’s the way of things I guess. We humans are too group oriented and group dependent, which can be a good thing, but who wants to be the outsider and break out of the mold you know?

The phrase “logical proof” is a term of art. It means something quite specific. Logical proofs can generally be formally expressed via predicate calculus. “Proof” in a legal context is not synonymous with “proof” in the context of the domain of logic or mathematics.

I have seen purported logical proofs for the existence of a deity. I do not recall ever seeing one which supports the deity offered up by Christianity without also supporting other deities offered up by other religions.

Do you, in fact, know of any such formal logical proofs offered up by anyone, which can in fact be unambiguously stated in predicate logic?

Thank you. I really need to update the links section on my website, but there are so many sites and podcasts worth mentioning that it is hard to keep up. I try to link to the major podcasts I listen to and they tend to run the gambit of ideologies.

I believe I even still have a link to HotAir. I still find it worthy of visiting and mentioning even taking into account people like right4life.

Even with maturity, it takes for some in certain situations, more than a modicum of courage. After all, how many times have you heard about family and friends rejecting apostates? All too often and all too sad.

@ Axeman Trolling is a hit and run or an intellectually dishonest reply. Like yours.

Gene Splicer on February 2, 2011 at 6:31 PM

Not quite as dishonest as recycling deceptive context-free quotes.

Look, you accuse me of ad hominem. I said, “Anybody who quotes the last paragraph of Mein Kampf Chapter 2 for the purpose of showing that Hitler as a “Christian” is probably lazy[,] a pretty uncritical reader or a charlatan.”

There are probably cases in which people are lazy. There are criteria for making the judgment “Joe is a lazy thinker”. There are cases for uncritical readers and there are cases for charlatans. Just like there are cases for being “dishonest” as you have accused me. There are cases and evidence that somebody is trolling. Calling me dishonest and calling me a troll maybe called “ad hominem” but it is not the ad hominem fallacy unless you dismiss people’s argument based on that fact. However, if you have already made such a judgment, it’s not beyond the pale to realize how the argument is less impressive from a lazy, uncritical, charlatan, dishonest, or trolling sort of writer.

“Your quote mining for example in the form of not including the entire comment by Hitler of what actions have been taken against atheists.

How is that “quote mining” to mention that the sentence in print actually begins with “Hence”–making the previous concept very integral to the context. And I see this quote repeated and repeated by atheists without the “hence” As if the thought starts with “I”.

Then of course we have the ad hom regarding intelligence and the like from you instead of a rational argument against the claims posted. No points there.

There was no “ad hom against intelligence”. “Lazy” is a personality fault, more or less orthogonal to intelligence. Critical reading is a skill. And Charlatans can be the epitome of intelligent.

And odd how you cannot make your arguments here but have to rely upon someone who you think makes the argument for you.

LOL. Or, I read it and agree with it, having read MK Chapter 2.

I mean even right4life isn’t too lazy to post quotes from her sources.

So, I gave additional quotes. I was being brief, not “lazy”. Lazy is not having read the surrounding source material of something you claim to understand.

So where is the CP page on the following? “Being convinced that people need and require a faith is not the same thing as holding a faith yourself.” Actually, the last two points require no additional quotes because I’m pointing out things about the very text you posted.

But since you want to get into dishonesty, AGAIN this sentence does not begin with “My feeling…” It begins with “I say: …” And the context is AGAIN what came before it:

And people are saying yet again that we were ‘agitators.’ I would like here to appeal to a greater than I, Count Lerchenfeld. He said in the last session of the Landtag that his feeling ‘as a man and a Christian’ prevented him from being an anti-Semite.

Thus as I indicated, he was responding to the claim of being “agitators” and as one prominent official cast it as less than Christian. If you read the speech, Hitler keeps punctuating that “we were the first to declare/protest” and people “abused them as ‘agitators'”.

It wasn’t trolling. It wasn’t “hit and run”. I checked here quite a few times in the next couple days to see if anybody wanted to correct me on MK. The first response I see is somebody calling it “hit and run” and “trolling”. When it really is a much better reading of MK Chapter 2.

Did you know that Hitler was a type of nihilist or epiphenomenalist? From MK Chapter 6:

When the nations on this planet fight for existence … then all considerations of humanitarianism or aesthetics crumble into nothingness; for all these concepts do not float about in the ether, they arise from man’s imagination and are bound up with man. When he departs from this world, these concepts are again dissolved into nothingness, for Nature does not know them.

A passage in Chapter 11 echoes this where he cites “expressions of feeling, ethical conceptions, etc.” as the “world of emotion” apart from “exact scientific fact” and “cold logic”. Of this “inner life” he says they are chained to the existence of men, to whose intellectual imagination and creative power they owe their existence.”

Hmmm. Seems Hitler is saying that God is not the author of “ethical conceptions”, but man (and specifically The Aryan Man) is. Nature is the only recognized possible maintainer, and it does not know these things.

Meanwhile, Christians believe that God is the author and maintainer of “ethical conceptions” or “laws”. They don’t believe he was greater in chasing the Jews from the temple than as the Lamb of God, by whose stripes we are healed, who as sufferer gave himself as a perfect atoning sacrifice.

LOL. You talk about ad hominems when you concluded all sorts of things about my character when I posted a brief–but emphatic–rebuttal and didn’t spam the already off-point topic with multiple replies to the lack of challenges to my school of reading on MK Chapter 2.